Plato's Concept of the Soul

1463 Words6 Pages
Plato’s concept of the soul is incoherent. Whether we have a soul and what it is has been debated by philosophers for centuries. The existence of the soul is important as it could help explain what happens after we die. Plato was a dualist and believed the soul could exist without a body, however the four arguments he presents to prove his theory are flawed, proving his idea of the soul incoherent. I will argue that Aristotle’s materialist approach to the body-soul distinction is a more coherent explanation on the soul, Descartes may have attacked Aristotle’s assertion, based on his argument from doubt- if the soul is simply a component of the body, then it’s existence can be doubted, rendering it effectively corporeal, and therefore not the metaphysical entity which Descartes believed it to be. Plato believed the soul was more important than the body as the body is part of the empirical world and subject to change. As he believed the senses were an unreliable guide for Plato it was the soul that enables us to have true knowledge. He described the soul as ‘simple’ meaning it cannot be split into parts and is unchanging, this allows it to have knowledge of other simple concepts i.e: the Forms. Bodily desires and spirited passions, Plato argued, are like two horses pulling a chariot which has to be controlled by reason. Reason is the true part of the soul in the body. Bodily desires and our passions are expendable features of our true self. Plato believed that by devoting one's life to the contemplation of the Forms rather than gratifying the body one could come to appreciate that the body's future lies in the dust while the soul's future belongs to the realm of the eternal Forms. Plato asserted the immortality of the soul as it allows for the existence of the world of Forms. However, Plato believes the soul is the capacity for thought which is incoherent in
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